


Gone

by orphan_account



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Angst, Drug Use, M/M, Post-Break Up, drug references, oh boy so much angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-07-11 01:09:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7018828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Weeks have passed and the pain of losing Oliver is still soul-crushing.</p><p>So Connor turns his ex-drug addict lie into something real, to help deal with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gone

**Author's Note:**

> Idek,, I was feeling angsty

The dark apartment was cold. Not in the physical sense - the type of cold that gives you shivers - but in the eerie way that it felt as though life had been drained from it.

It was a strange sensation, Connor mused from somewhere deep in his absent mind. Like someone had stormed in and soaked every inch in petrol - furniture, frames, walls, ceiling, everything- then stormed out, tossing a lit match behind them. And Connor, now, was standing in the cremated ruins, trying to salvage what used to be his entire life.

He found his way through the ashes to his room, finding it, obviously, whole. Nobody had burnt the place. Nobody else but him had even been here in weeks. No - that damage that Connor couldn't stop picturing, that was all his fault.

 _My fault._ The same two words ricocheted through Connor's conscience, ripping holes through any other thoughts trying to arise and distract him. _My fault that he's gone. My fault that his life is ruined. My fault that he hates me. My fault._

The strangest thing about the way Connor felt was that it wasn't painful. Not like he expected.

That night, weeks ago - the night Connor had watched him leave through tears - after he'd finally pulled the shattered pieces of himself back into something resembling a human, Connor had waited for the pain.

It wasn't like you see in movies, where the girl sits on the floor, delicate sobs shaking her frame, crying out his name. It wasn't like in the books, where the boy drank and drank until he wasn't himself; he was a cracked shell of the person he'd been before he'd lost the one he loved.

Connor had felt gone. That was all - gone, as if he hadn't been there in the first place. At first, it had hurt like hell - it had felt like every cell in his body was being ripped away and he was left with just raw _hurt_. But then, surprisingly quickly, it had faded. And Connor had felt numb, in the most excruciating sense of the word. He'd felt like he was tied to a machine, waiting passively as every drop of blood his body ever manufactured was siphoned out of him.

Since that night, weeks ago, the siphoning had only gotten more intense, until now. Now, as Connor stood by the cold, tossed sheets of his bed, he felt completely drained. It felt as though he could just step away from his body if he wanted to.

His bag lay on his side of the bed, where he must've just put it. The other side was, of course, empty.

Connor picked his bag up again, and pulled out the small clear bag he'd carried home inside. There was other stuff in there, his phone, wallet, more, but he left them in his bag when he tossed it somewhere else. 

The last of his energy was focused on the small clear bag in his hand.

Connor knew that the bag was there, and that its contents were real, but he didn't seem to be able to feel them. He could see the two little white pills, but his mind couldn't comprehend what they were capable of.

Taking off his jacket, Connor sat down on the bed. He tipped out the pills, left them there, patient. 

And he waited. Connor's heart, somewhere inside him, was beating plainly, and the apartment was so quiet that he could almost hear it. His brain would normally be screaming at this point - thrashing, shaking, shrieking - begging him not to do it, to stop. Normally, he'd be wracking with anxiety and adrenaline because of the pills in front of him. 

But that was normally. He hadn't been functioning normally for weeks, not since that night.

Connor's gaze dragged his attention to the other side of the bed. That side looked even colder, even sparser than the rest of the apartment felt, and Connor knew why. Because it wasn't just empty, it didn't have purpose anymore. It didn't have _him_. Nobody had occupied that space for weeks. 

Just like nobody had used that one mug sitting patiently at the back of the cupboard that matched Connor's. Just like nobody had picked up that book on the coffee table, marked with a bookmark that Connor had bought as a gift. Just like the rest of apartment 303, it had felt deserted for weeks, as if Connor wasn't even really there, but a handcuffed ghost.

And just like that, Connor ached. He actually felt it split him - like the beginnings of an earthquake. His heart collapsed, his eyes flooded, and he _ached_. Without any warning whatsoever, he felt the crushing loss more than ever. 

The blissful numbness had dissipated, leaving Connor heaving. His hands grasped at his hair, his chest felt hollow, he crippled. It felt like the oxygen was rushed out of his lungs by pounding tears. All he could do was cry, cry and cry that one word, that one name, the one thing that was truly missing -

_Oliver._

Once he said it, Connor couldn't stop. After weeks of ignoring it, pretending the name meant nothing, Connor cried it, and with it came every drop of blood that had been stolen.

_Oliver. Oliver, Oliver, fuck._

The need was too much - it truly felt like how it looked in the movies, finally. It felt exactly how Connor thought it would be all along, and it was impossibly worse. He found himself praying for the numbness to come back, but it wouldn't.

More than that, he found himself praying for Oliver. Even the thought of him was painful but still Connor prayed; the darkness behind his clenched eyes filled with memories of Oliver, and Oliver's smile, his embrace, his lips, him. But the memories were as cold as the side of the bed that Oliver hadn't lain in for weeks, and Connor's hands were grasping at the sheets, for the pills, grasping for something to make it hurt less.

Finally they were in Connor's hands, and he was searching for the glass of water by the bed that he didn't remember leaving there.

He just wanted Oliver. That's all. He never asked to ruin both of their lives with his lies and his secrets. Only Oliver - he didn't want this; he didn't want the pain, he didn't want to have to take it away with drugs.

_What kind are you looking for? What... effect are you going for?_

_I just want to forget._

_Forget what?_

_It doesn't matter. I just want it all to stop. I just want to forget him, and feel like a human again._

_Well, these'll make you feel something alright._

Connor found the glass, and swallowed the pills before he thought about doing it. 

He knew a lot about the effects of drugs. Maybe not these ones in particular, but he knew what they'd do - they weren't fatal, but something near that. They were supposed to take the hurting and replace it with artificially normal feelings, feelings that Connor could live with.

Connor picked up the pillow from the other side of the bed. There was just one - Oliver hated sleeping with any more than one pillow, unlike Connor, who almost slept vertically. He held the pillow close, letting it absorb his tears and his sobs. It wasn't Oliver, but it was as close as he'd get.

The pain was overwhelming. It felt worse than he could've expected. It didn't feel like some compacted chemicals could fix it, especially not some compacted chemicals that he'd bought off some strange 20-something girl he found out about through the darker corners of the Internet.

But it was as close as he'd get. So he sat back, pillow held tight, and waited to feel like a human again.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr; ecto-hampton (was makers-manhattan)


End file.
